The Confession
by DominiqueMorgenstern
Summary: Ronan goes to Cabeswater in his dreams, where he meets Kavinsky, and gets a few things off his chest...Rated M for explicit references to violence, gay sex, and an enormous amount of profanity.
1. Chapter 1

Ronan was dreaming again.

The dream was dense and viscous, and it resisted him as much as sucked and forced him further under. His dream-body felt heavy and unwilling. It was years until he reached Cabeswater.

"Miss me, Lynch?"

He was sitting at the base of a tree. His neck was bent back, resting against the trunk, and he stared at Ronan listlessly, his mouth slightly apart, looking very much like he was either high or very depressed; he couldn't tell. It was a disconcerting demeanour for him. He looked strangely stripped, without his infamous metallic armour: no gilt chain around his neck, no glinting earring, no steel-lensed sunglasses. Not even gelled hair. Just the white vest and combat pants. Ronan wondered if he owned any other clothes.

"The hell are you doing here?" Ronan returned.

Kavinsky's eyebrows jumped up. Then he leaped up, onto his feet. He tilted his head to the side and his mouth turned downwards mockingly. "Missed you too, honeybee." His face barely upheld the joke: there was no sincerity to his ridicule. He looked too sick and decayed and emotionless and exhausted for anything. Kavinsky gestured around them, "This is _your _head, man. You tell me."

Ronan knew, then, why he'd dreamt this construct. He needed to say something to him. And Ronan didn't even need to think about the words, this time. They were simple. But it wasn't _to say. _Ronan drummed his fingers on the side of his pant leg nervously; he was burning with embarrassment when he finally spat ungraciously, "I'm sorry."

For a brief moment, Kavinsky's face betrayed something like real shock, and then _Kavinsky _fell back into place. _That _was what Ronan had dreaded. He could easily deal with _that _Kavinsky than he could a real Kavinsky who pretended to be a real human being for once. "For what?"

Ronan's frustration billowed. He _knew _Kavinsky knew. The bastard just wanted to watch him squirm. _To be entertained. _Ronan glanced around the forest furtively. As always, Cabeswater seemed charged with supernatural energy, gleaming like the lacquered, hyper-real world it was. Eventually, Ronan got round to saying it. It took a ridiculous amount of nerve. His voice, when it emerged, was low and infinite, "You know."

_I'm sorry you're dead._

"Oh," Kavinsky murmured. Ronan looked at him, surprised. "Oh, _that." _A smirk perched on one side of his pale lips. "Oh yeah. I know about _that._"

Ronan went rigid. Ronan Lynch's pauses were an entirely different force of silence: an act in itself, a creeping thing, it caught hold of your ankle when you weren't looking, and flayed you alive. Kavinsky, though, didn't appear bothered. _That _was what pissed him off. Ronan proceeded to lift an eyebrow, arched with marvelously precise disdain over his maliciously blue eyes. "You do? And what is _that_?"

Kavinsky kept that surprised look on his face, as if he meant to say, _Isn't it obvious? _"Well. You're sorry that you passed up a perfectly good opportunity to get a stiffer fuck from me than you ever will from your precious _Dick Gansey," _his pitch hiked up effeminately at the end. He smirked tauntingly.

Ronan's thoughts drenched tar-black, sliding straight into a pit of violence. He imagined lashing out, but he restrained himself. Perhaps it was Gansey—the invocation of his name—that did it. Gansey, who was there in Ronan's head, telling him in his imperial, ardent voice, _You know the difference between us and Kavinsky? We matter. _

Ronan stepped right up to Kavinsky's face. His dead, dead face. The sagging bags under his eyes were gory purple things against his tanned, gaunt face. Suddenly, Ronan realised he'd never noticed his eyes before. They were hazel. Like Gansey's. He had long, dusty eyelashes. Like Adam's. They lent his eyes a deceptively harmless, easily-hurt look that Ronan hated. Ronan shook his head and looked him up and down. "The drugs really fucked you up, man."

"Nah…" Kavinsky breathed. A tiny thing twisted the edge of his debauched lips upward, briefly, before it disappeared. "The drugs kept me _alive_."

"Alive? Not much a life."

He snorted. "You think you're so much better than me, don't you, Lynch? Mommy and Daddy loved you _so fucking much. _But did you ever think….Where would _you _be without your _precious _Gansey? Huh? Even if you'd survived the nightmares slashing up your veins, you'd have kicked yourself off a chair by now…_Or," _Then he whispered, leaning, "_you'd be exactly like me._"

"Like you _were,_" Ronan corrected.

He grimaced. "Fuck, man, Dick got you going to spelling bees, too?"

Ronan gritted his teeth. When he spoke, the words slithered out between the cage of his teeth. "It's amazing how you're _fucking dead _and yet you're still an insufferable asshole."

"Aw, yeah, but, come _on, _at least I have a good one, right?"

"Fucking _God _man—" Ronan stepped away, cursing incoherently.

Kavinsky ignored him, and continued blithely, "Or at least in your head I do—"

"What did you say?" Ronan demanded.

"I _said: _at least in your head I do." Baffled, Ronan did not know what to say. Kavinsky let out a raucous laugh. "Oh God, don't tell you _didn't _lie awake fantasising about bending me over the back of that _crappy _goddamn BMW of yours. _Ha ha ha ha! _And don't even bother lying, Lynch. You're shitting bad at it."

"I don't _have _to lie, you worthless piece of shit."

"Wait, are you saying—did Princess' balls finally drop? Well, _congratulations!"_ He grinned and opened his arms wide, "Now _he_ can get it up and _you_ can finally get rid of all that wet-dream frustration—"

_Fuck this._

Ronan punched him. The blow knocked Kavinsky wide; he nearly went to the ground, but he flung out an arm at the last minute, steadying himself on the trunk of the tree. He breathed heavily for a moment while Ronan shook out the pain blasting through his knuckles. Kavinsky groaned and swivelled around, hunched and massaging his jaw. "Looks like Little Miss Sensitive still has that pipe up her ass,"

In a second, Ronan had collared him and pinned him to the tree. "Say _one more word _about Gansey and I will fuck you up—"

"Oh I _hope so—"_

Ronan punched him again. Their proximity and the resulting impact meant that Kavinsky instantly went limp and crumpled. Ronan let him fall, and then slammed a few well-aimed kicks into his stomach. Both of them were breathing hard before Ronan stopped. Kavinsky rolled over. Ronan knelt down beside him and said, "You know what the best thing is about this, K? I'm not even _lying. _It's not Gansey. Never has been. Christ, I think it's _you _who has the crush on him." Ronan began to smile, feeling dirtily triumphant. "You haven't even _guessed."_

Kavinsky's face flattened and then: "Aw, no, man. _No. _Tell me it's not _HIM._" Ronan didn't reply. "Aw, _fuck, man. _Really? _Really? _Gansey, at least, I get—bet he's horny as shit under all that stupid-ass nicey-nice-facade crap he has going on—but _him? _The skinny little poor boy? That one? Fuck." His lip curled in disdain. "Didn't know you liked _charity_ projects."

Ronan spat viciously, "Screw you—"

"Dude, you know he's as straight as a rod, right? You're not getting any blowing off _him_—"

Ronan punched him. This time round, he knew the blood striping Kavinsky's face was from his own mutilated knuckles, but in his fury, he managed to ignore the pain, and learnt to relish it instead. Suddenly, Kavinsky began to laugh. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back. "Aw, fuck, do it _again_!" When Ronan paused, Kavinsky glared, raised himself up on his arms, and shouted hostilely, "Think you can hurt me, now Lynch? I'm _dead _you stupid shithole!"

"Yeah," Ronan said through gritted teeth, "But if you'd just _come down _from that fucking car like I said then you wouldn't be!"

Kavinsky scoffed. "Please don't tell me you're sorry for me, man. I'm not sorry. All that chasing around was fun."

Ronan dropped him, abruptly disgusted. "Fun? Kidnapping my brother was _fun?_"

"Oh, hell yeah. Little guy nearly wet himself. He _is _a cute little teddy bear, isn't he. See why you like him so much—"

"Leave my brother out of this, you motherfucking—"

Kavinsky laughed again and shook his head sadly. "_So emotional. _Too easy to wind you up, man. You need to learn to chill, _Ronan._" The utterance of his first name was a transgression: a mellifluous thrill, shamelessly squeezing and stretching the vowels, exploring the cusp of every syllable with his mouth as he said it.

A strange kind of blasphemy. He told him earnestly, "You really are a rare piece of shit, Kavinsky."

"Oh yeah. Only thing I'm proud of. Listen, man, don't be sorry for me. I sure as hell am not. Being in hell's better than being in there," he gestured behind Ronan, to the far-away lucid world. Then, he got up, leaving Ronan kneeling there.

Ronan looked up as Kavinsky turned his back to him. He was walking away when he said, "Oh, before I forget." Then, he turned around, retrieved something from his pocket, and threw it. Ronan caught it in his palm, and stared at the object, dumbfounded.

Kavinsky said, "Don't leave her to just sit. And when you do, make sure you give you a proper fuck, man. She hates it when you go gentle,"

Ronan did not know what to say. Kavinsky grinned. "Don't worry, you don't have to say it. I already know." He winked at him and turned around.

Ronan watched him walk away.

And then he was awake.

Instantly alert, his heart thumped violently in his chest.

He slipped out of bed, his bare feet touching the cold floor, as he dropped the Mitsu's keys on the bedside table, and pulled on some pants.

Where was he going? He didn't know. Wherever it was, he didn't expect to find what he was looking for, doing what it was doing: its head inclined fawningly, stood over the couch. A muted, tender smile was tipping the corners of its mouth while an awed, hesitant hand extended—caressing the top of Blue's bulbous clouds of dark hair, tufted sleepily on the arm of the couch. Its fingers dipped into it, and the smile widened divinely.

Ronan felt deeply disturbed. "Dude. What are you—"

Gansey gasped and jerked away from her. "_Lord, _Ronan." He started mumbling something else, something about _fright _and _sorry _and _doing._

Ronan cut him off. "If your idea is that you can get away with doing illicit things at night because no one can see, you might want to re-think that strategy—living with a chronic insomniac and a ghost."

Gansey's glare was tired, but impressive. "I wasn't _doing _anything," He insisted.

"Gansey. I _saw _you—"

"And it wasn't _illicit._"

"Your face says different. Jesus, why is she even here?" Ronan gestured to the couch. "Doesn't she have her own bed?"

Gansey's voice went hard. "We're going to be out in a few hours, _that's _why she's—you know why she's here. And regardless, she can stay any time she pleases. _I _own this place."

"And does Adam know about this?"

He glanced down at the couch, aware of movement, as he saw the dark hair move around; a little huff followed. Gansey leaned towards him. "Can you keep your voice down?"

"I'll take that as a no."

Gansey hissed, _"What _is your problem, Ronan?"

"My problem?" He stepped towards Gansey. "My problem is that this," he gestured between Blue and Gansey, "is turning into some soap opera bullshit, and I'm tired of watching it, man."

Gansey returned, his tone snapping and cold, "I do apologise. I didn't realise I was performing for your benefit. I'll be sure to work on that,"

"Gansey." Ronan said heavily. "You need to sort this out."

"Sort _what _out, Ronan? I _can't. _I never meant for any of this happen."

"It's easy to solve. Get rid of Blue."

"_Wh—_" Gansey began to exclaim, stopped, and then whispered threateningly, "_what? _How could you even suggest that?"

"Have you not noticed? Everything bad that happened only started when _she _began hanging out with us. There's only one common denominator in all this, Gansey. That's her."

Gansey was silent for too long. "Yes, you're right."

Ronan was stunned. "What?"

"There _is _a common denominator in this…" Gansey looked around forlornly, and finally rested on Ronan. "Me."

"What?" Ronan exclaimed, bewildered how he'd come to that conclusion.

"Me," Gansey repeated, staring at the ground. "All this is my fault," Shaking his head miserably, he walked past Ronan and disappeared out the room, round the corner.

"Where are you going?" Ronan called.

"It doesn't matter," He mumbled back.

Ronan waited. Eventually, he saw Gansey appear on the drive, open the door to the Camaro, slam it; heard the engine chug biosterously as he turned the ignition, and sped away.


	2. Chapter 2

Gansey could not drive forever.

In his preoccupation, he almost forgot about Cabeswater, and it was this that brought him, grudgingly, back to Monmouth's drive.

He switched off the ignition, removed the keys and fondled the creased leather fob in his hands.

The engine dripped, ticking, ticking, basking in the cool, fresh Henrietta dawn that was distantly blushing the sky. For a moment, he listened to the prayerful silence, and looked around the Pig's interior, thinking of the amount of the times he had sat vigil in it like this. _I've left a part of my soul in this car._

Far away, the door of Monmouth shut. Footsteps.

He allowed himself the pleasure of closing his eyes. It only aggravated the ravenous hole that years of fatigue had eaten away inside him, insatiable, yearning for more, for more. He forced them open, exhaling, wondering how, and when, and why, it was that he'd lost the art of sleep, many years past; of coaxing himself to fall backwards, into that primal darkness. To trust that he'd wake up. With trepidation, he gnawed on that old, bone-tired thought: _what if it is always like this?_

The car door opened; someone got in. Not Ronan: the car barely jostled at all. The person had to slam it shut a few times.

He very much hoped that it was Noah.

With an accompanying breeze, he felt their pronounced scent rush over him, flooding through the cab. He did not look at them, but he felt their smell crush something strong and virtuous and honourable inside him, this awful treachery his subconscious committed against him. Time and time again. Because there was no question who that smell belonged to. It distressed him so much that he thought he might cry.

They heaved, "He's right, you know."

His eyes felt sore. He tightened them, and his field of vision narrowed and blurred. "You were listening?"

There was a long pause. "Ronan wasn't exactly whispering."

It was not in Gansey's power to revoke Ronan's words, or the truth he'd laid in them. Instead, he placed his hands on the steering wheel, stroking the worn-smooth, thin band against his palms. He imagined reinserting the keys in the ignition, crushing the accelerator, and never coming back.

_But no, _he thought. Glendower. Ronan. Adam. Every vein in his body led back to this – to Henrietta. He could not leave his heart. And he heard its sound, the ardent, colourful lilt of it, all over her voice. It tried to conceal itself, but its melody showed in all the unexpected hollows that she didn't hear—but Gansey heard them all. The accent had burrowed its way deep inside him and it meant, very simply, _home._

She said, "There's no reason for me to be here anymore. I should leave."

Gansey gripped the steering wheel harder. He made vehement, panicked noises, momentarily robbed of words. Eventually, he located reason. "Of course there is. _Cabeswater. _We _need _you."

He darted a glance over at her. Her hair was a huge, wonderful mess that fell into her face, which looked forlornly at her lap. She said, "So, what? I'm just the assistant?" She snorted a bitter _ha _sound. "Maybe you should _employ _me. Might be less awkward that way."

_"Jane,_" he grumbled, sliding his eyes downwards to her, somewhere near her legs. "I refuse to get into this ill-fated conversation again."

He saw her, very, very slowly, turn her head towards him disbelievingly.

Her gaze challenged him, but he couldn't bring himself to look at her back. Abruptly, he felt self-conscious. He was still wearing yesterday's clothes. His hair had not seen a comb and his jaw had not seen a razor since yesterday, either. He waved a hand at her. "I know I know. Bad joke. Sorry." Then, he said, "But…you get along with Noah, right?"

She looked away from him; even in his periphery, he saw her wince. "_Gan_sey. It doesn't matter. Adam…" She mumbled, "It would be excruciating."

"But you have a stake in this, now. You want to find Glendower, don't you? You're not Adam's tagalong anymore. You've earned your own place."

Gansey watched her lift her head and smile begin to tremble around the line of her mouth. It bloomed beautifully into a triumphant grin.

Gansey wriggled in his seat uncomfortably, and looked out the window. Now that he'd said _that,_he had no idea what to say.

"So how does this work, anyway?" She asked, saving him. "How is it different from a normal car?"

He looked around; Blue's hand was folded over the knob of the gear stick, her fingers moving around the numbers. He watched her caress it curiously for a while. Somehow, he felt abruptly guilty; her fondling felt inappropriately intimate: touching a part of the Camaro's anatomy that normally only Gansey's hand occupied. He was written into that gear stick, the sceptre he rested his hand on. The sensation of it quivering under his hand with the force of the engine often stayed with him long after he'd stopped driving.

He stared at the horrid space between his knee and her hand.

_To hell with it._

He put in the clutch with his left foot, and tilted his head to the side pensively while he shyly covered her hand with his. He left it there, and neither of them spoke for a moment, considering what they were consensually allowing to take place. He thought about lovely and small and warm her hand was. He wanted to grin with glee. "Like this." He pushed down, and gently shifted the stick to the left, and then up. "This is first gear: 'Drive', essentially. The one you leave off with. The difference is that you have to have the clutch in to do it. See?" Gansey leaned away as Blue's eyes, at his invitation, skidded down his thigh, knee, calf, and snagged on his foot. He was wearing his Top-Siders. He glanced at Blue expectantly, and found himself remarkably disappointed when she made no comment. Despite being inclined downwards, he thought he could see faint pink blushing her face. There was no telling if she was uncomfortable, at ease, admiring, or unimpressed.

"Why do you need to have the clutch in?" She asked.

"Disengages the engine. If you try to shift the gears without the clutch in, you'll hurt the gearbox extremely."

Blue looked at him uncomprehendingly. "Again, in English?"

He released her hand, and offered a lengthier explanation that involved fewer mechanical terms.

Looking the whole cab, she asked, "Did Adam teach you this?" but she looked as if she was asking, _Did Adam make this?_

Her gaze landed on his leg again. Gansey wondered if she knew. "Yes," he admitted.

She sighed, squirming in her seat, and turned her head to the window. "What are we going to do?"

He dropped his hands from the wheel and stroked his bottom lip with his thumb. For a moment, he imagined stroking her hair instead, as he'd been in Monmouth before—it had been so soft. He said, "Jane," and he didn't know why. For no reason at all. But there had been something smouldering in his voice when he uttered it.

Hesitantly, she turned towards him. She said, "I mean it. We both know how this story ends, Gansey. Say I find my mom and you find Glendower—then what? You'll go to Harvard and graduate with some fancy degree and then head back to D.C or something. And then," She looked ahead determinedly, "and then, I'll still be here. Doing nothing. _Being _nothing."

Helplessness was not an emotion that nestled easily inside Richard Campbell Gansey III. He had been nurtured in an Elysian cradle of endless wealth and power, and endowed with all the golden, enchanting charisma that had come has a complimentary bonus. Whatever he wanted; it was done. But lately, it was smuggling its way inside him more and more.

Being mindlessly offensive was something he was, conversely, very used to feeling. He was never wholly cognizant of _what, specifically,_ it was about him that Blue (Adam) objected to; but he was sufficiently aware to know that this was precisely the kind of scenario where one misplaced word would obliterate all his good work. Anything he said at this juncture would reek of his money and his superiority and his privilege and everything Blue was without.

He was pushing it, he knew, and the act struck him as distinctly ungentlemanly, but he did it anyway, because there was nothing else left to do.

He grabbed her hand. She fumbled, unsure at the sudden contact. "Wh-what arey—"

Then, he pulled, straining her to him, bending across, putting his arms around her. He rested his chin firmly on her shoulder, conveying that his intentions were strictly chaste. She said, "No," and tried to pull away. Feebly.

But he hung onto her and said, "It's okay, it's okay. It'll be okay." He said this more to soothe his own enraged conscience. She put her arms around him, too, then.

The position, leaning across, was painfully awkward and uncomfortable, but Gansey did not much care. His nose touched her hair, and he could smell the fragrance of her shampoo and his breath tickled strands of it. He heard her swallow. "Don't," She warned.

"I don't forget," he whispered into her ear. _How could I?_

Silence settled, harmonising around them for a while, and he thought he could distinguish her pulse. Daringly, he said, "Perhaps that was the end of the story before. But…it _can't _be that way anymore. Not now. I left that behind a long time ago."

"And how does _my _story end? Adam's?"

"I wish I knew, Jane."


End file.
